Summary Conservation Units (Unidades de Conservação – UCs) cover 22% of the Legal Amazon and are an effective strategy to preserve animals, plants and environmental services, and also to halt deforestation and to maintain the planet’s climate balance. However, deforestation rates in UCs have been increasing – in 2015, they already surpassed the 2012 rate

THE IMPORTANCE OF MEASURING SOCIAL PROGRESS IN THE AMAZON The Brazilian Amazon is superlative in natural resources, harboring one-third of the world’s tropical forests and the planet’s largest hydrographic basin. Beneath this region lies one of Earth’s richest mineral deposits. Moreover, the Amazon forest retains vast amounts of carbon and plays a strategic role